The Death of Slim Shady is forthcoming as Eminem releases his new song “Houdini,” a single aimed at making his “career disappear.”
“Little baby devil with the forked tongue and it’s stickin’ out,” raps Eminem in the opening verse, before he adds, “Still a white jerk pullin’ up in a Chrysler to the cypher with the Vics, Percs and a Bud Light shirt.”
Elsewhere on the track, the rapper shouts out the “Hot Girl Summer” star: “If I was to ask for Megan Thee Stallion if she would collab with me/Would I really have a shot at a feat?/I don’t know, but I’m glad to be, back like abra-abracadabra.”
In April, after an appearance at the 2024 NFL Draft in Detroit, Eminem announced that his upcoming new album — his first since 2020’s Music to Be Murdered By — would be titled The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace).
Eminem continued to promise kill to off his alter ego — popularized by 1999’s The Slim Shady LP — with a faux true crime show about the character’s death, and followed that up with an actual obituary that published in the Detroit Free Press earlier this month.
“Fans ‘will never forget’ controversial rapper,” stated the obituary, which boasted the headline “Slim Shady Made Lasting Impressions.”
“A product of Detroit who began his career there as a rogue splinter in the flourishing underground rap scene of the mid to late 1990s, Shady first became a household name in 1999 with the debut of his playfully deranged single ‘My Name Is,’ which — along with its uniquely eye catching video — exposed the young artist and his lyrics to a wider audience,” read the fake obit. “Ultimately, the very things that seemed to be the tools he used became calling cards that defined an existence that could only come to a sudden and horrific end.”
“Houdini” keeps the death of Slim Shady theme going with its magical subtext — “For my last trick, I’m gonna make my career disappear,” Eminem told David Blaine in a teaser video on Tuesday — and by name-checking the magician and escape artist who died at the age of 52. Marshall Mathers himself turns 52 in October.
The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) is due out this summer.
From Rolling Stone US
